


Enough

by MilenaDaniels



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bellamy Blake & Nathan Miller Friendship, Comforting Nathan Miller, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cuddly Monty Green, David Miller is a good dad, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Hurt Monty Green, Emotionally Hurt everyone tbh, Harper Has Nightmares, Hugs, M/M, Monty Green Needs All The Hugs, Monty Green-centric, POV Nathan Miller, Post-Episode: s02e16 Blood Must Have Blood Part II, Post-Mount Weather, Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 02, Sharing a Bed, but also a hug!blocker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-18 00:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3549722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilenaDaniels/pseuds/MilenaDaniels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Monty has always been a tactile person, always quick to hug when the opportunity presents itself. After Mount Weather, Monty doesn't wait for the opportunities anymore. </p><p>OR</p><p>Five times Miller watched Monty hug other people before before he got his chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Clarke & Bellamy

**Author's Note:**

> I'm supposed to be posting the first chapter to the sequel of Easy, but I sort of...ruined it. Anyway, that's frustrating me and this idea wouldn't leave me alone so here it is!

**1\. Clarke**

Miller didn’t really take note of Monty until they were well out of the mountain. He’d been too blindsided with his dad’s presence, his minute-long hug, and how he had found his guard gear and immediately placed it over Miller’s shoulders, like there was still a threat to protect him from. With all of that and the dozens of traumatized bodies aimlessly walking around until Kane called for them to follow him out, Miller didn’t really process much of anything else until the cold air was on his skin and filling his lungs. It was daytime outside, go figure.

He did notice, on the long trek home, that Bellamy and Clarke were lagging somewhat behind the group, and that Monty alternated between walking with them and Harper. For a moment, he worried that Jasper hadn’t made it out, but when he looked ahead, he could spot his tall, lanky form nearer to the front of the column. He didn’t see a containment suit walking next to him, and he figured that explained everything. They had all learned of what had happened by now, how they'd been rescued from death by drilling. The whispers of one person in the know never stayed quiet long in a crowd like this. 

When they finally arrived at Camp Jaha, Miller found that some part of him was still hardwired to respond to Bellamy, so when he saw him stop just outside the camp gates in his peripheral vision, Miller stopped too, just to make sure everything was okay. Bellamy was watching Clarke and Monty hug - the kind of hug that said they wouldn’t be seeing each other in a long time - and when they broke apart, and Monty walked into camp alone, Miller found his eyes following him instead of Bellamy like he’d meant to. Bellamy probably wanted his privacy right now anyway. 

Monty was holding his arms to himself as if he was cold, or as if he needed another body there to hug instead, and Miller had taken a half-step forward when his dad gently patted his arm.

“You okay, son?” 

Looking back at his dad, still not used to being able to look at him at all, not used to him being there, close enough for an arm pat, and Miller smiled slightly.

“Yeah.” 

His dad smiled back, put his arm around his shoulders, and led him away to their quarters.

* * *

 

**2\. Bellamy**

The next time he saw Monty, it was the next day outside of Bellamy’s tent, and the sight stopped him dead in his tracks - Monty was throwing himself into Bellamy’s arms. Octavia, watching from her position on a crate, sharpening a set of knives, seemed entirely unconcerned by the display. 

The hug was nothing like the one Monty had shared with Clarke. Where that one had felt motivated by resignation, this one felt much more desperate. Monty was hugging as tight as he could, and Bellamy looked awkward but he wasn’t pushing him away. After a long moment, when it was obvious Monty wouldn’t be letting go, Bellamy sighed and wrapped his arms around him properly, with one around his shoulders, and the other rubbing up and down his back. They were at a distance from him, but Miller thought he heard Bellamy say, “not going anywhere.”

“Always been a hugger that one,” Octavia said quietly, and a few weeks back, Miller would have bet the same sentence would have been spoken with teasing affection, but today her words were sad, as if the fact would be Monty’s undoing. Miller didn’t think that could right. 

When Monty finally let go, both he and Bellamy wiped at their eyes, and Monty left, like that was all he’d come for. Bellamy disappeared into his tent, and like yesterday, Miller’s eyes followed Monty longer than they’d meant to before he approached his destination.

“Hey,” Miller called as he lifted the flap to Bellamy’s tent. “Got a minute?”

“Yeah,” he replied, his back to him, and his voice rough. “Just gimme a sec.” 

Miller nodded, though Bellamy couldn’t see him. Bellamy cleared his throat a couple of times, and his hand quickly swiped across his face again before he finally turned around.

“What do you need?” 

“Nothing,” Miller said with a shake of his head. 

Bellamy’s brows came together with puzzlement, like he was too exhausted to muster up proper annoyance. And he really did look tired. As close as he was now, Miller could see how pale his skin was, how starkly his freckles stood out, and how dark the stains under his eyes were. His eyes were red too, and Miller figured it was a fifty-fifty split between fatigue and unnamable grief. 

“I just wanted to thank you,” Miller said. Bellamy’s eyes shifted to stare at a spot behind him, so Miller took a step closer. “I’ve got my dad back because of you.”

Bellamy’s jaw clenched. 

“Hey,” Miller called, “I would have died in that mountain. And he would have died. We all would have died in there if it wasn’t for you.”

“A lot of us did,” Bellamy ground out.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “but it would have been all of us if you didn’t do what you did. Harper, Monty, Jasper, Clarke’s mom, my dad, they’re all alive because you saved them. You saved us. And whatever else is going on in your head, I just…I wanted you to remember that.”

Bellamy finally found it in him to make eye contact, if only to gauge his sincerity for a moment, before falling away again. But he nodded. He heard him.

They didn’t hug it out, because that wasn’t their style, but he’d said what he’d needed to, because whatever happened in the days to come, whatever the Alpha station crew, or the new Chancellor got up to, Miller wasn’t ever going to forget the two months he spent on the ground with his people, or as Bellamy’s right hand man.

“Come get me when you need me, for whatever,” he said.

Bellamy nodded once more, before calling, “Miller, Monty…he could do with hearing what you said.”

“He’s my next stop,” he replied.

Bellamy grinned as much as he could and just said, “Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will feature Octavia, Wick, and Harper!


	2. Wick, Octavia, and Harper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really need to stop making "edits" that turn into "adding 1k to the story". Also on the list of things I need to stop doing: starting brand new fics in the middle of editing another. Stop that, self.
> 
> P.S. If there are any artsy people out there who feel a particular need to draw out the "Wick" section, what Miller is looking at, I would love you forever. I can just see it in my head and it gives me feels for literally all involved. (Blanket invitation to anyone to art any part of any of my fics, btw, not just that one :P)

**3\. Wick**

Unfortunately, Monty wasn’t as easy to find as a guy wandering alone in a blue cardigan should have been. Miller checked Medical, but he hadn’t been through there, and he wasn’t at the makeshift commissary either. Next, he checked Harper’s tent, but she hadn’t seen him, and while Jasper was in his tent, he was alone, curled up on his side, staring out at nothing, and Miller couldn’t bring himself to ask him if he’d seen Monty. His last option was to ask Raven, and he’d been dragging his heels on bothering her, but finally his choices boiled down to tracking her down or panicking and asking his dad to mount a search, and the latter would probably be an uncomfortable favour to ask so soon.

Raven, thankfully, was easy to find. She had apparently just cleared out a room adjacent to her Mecha shop and shoved her few belongings in it. It was a pretty cramped room, though perfectly fine for the purpose of housing a single sleeping person. Three, however, was a bit of a stretch, which is what Miller concluded a split second before he could raised his hand to rap against the open doorframe. 

Raven, a seemingly unending bruise, was sleeping alone on the bed, one of her legs up on a pillow with a brace on it, the other covered in white bandages already stained dark red and brown with drying blood. Wick was sitting on a cushion next to the bed, looking banged up himself, but holding her hand in his and keeping watch over both her sleeping form and Monty’s, who was curled up against him. Monty’s arms were still wrapped tightly around himself and his cardigan, but Wick’s free arm crossed his back and his hand had a solid grip on Monty’s side. There was no pillow under Monty, just his bent legs, as though he’d fallen to his knees and faceplanted into Wick’s shoulder, which, by the easy-going (but gentle) shrug Wick was giving Miller, was probably exactly what happened. 

“I throw the best parties, right?” Wick whispered, a very tired grin sliding across his lips.

Miller grinned half-heartedly in response. 

He stood there awkwardly in the open doorway just looking in while he tried to come up with a reasonable way to offer to wake Monty up and look after him himself. He would no doubt be better suited to it than some guy who may or may not be Raven’s boyfriend (or, alternatively, some weirdo who was collecting young engineering geniuses). But he didn’t know for sure that Monty didn’t mean to end up exactly where he was. He didn’t know Monty hadn’t come here seeking Wick and not Raven. Wick seemed easy enough with the arrangement, each of his thumbs gently stroking the available side or hand of the sleeping people in his charge. 

In the end, Monty was sleeping peacefully, and Miller was willing to bet it was the first time he’d been able to in a while, so he couldn’t justify disturbing him. Still, he stayed in that doorway for long minutes, long enough that Wick spoke again, just as quietly as before.

“You coming or going? We can make room, Monty can get real compact in a pinch.” The man’s face was entirely innocent and Miller didn’t trust it at all, his comments even less. But then he could hardly trust himself when he realized he was actually considering the offer.

“Tell him I was looking for him when he wakes up,” he replied, nodding in Monty’s direction.

Wick looked sincere when he nodded, and Miller was satisfied that his message would get to its intended recipient. If not, it wasn’t that big a camp. He would find Monty again soon enough.

* * *

**4\. Octavia**

Wick could burn in hell. It had been _two days_ since Miller had seen Monty alone; he should have just woken Monty up at Raven's like he'd wanted to.

He knew for a fact that he wasn’t being actively avoided because when they saw each other at a distance, Monty smiled - tiredly, the expression strained but genuine - and looked like he _might_ have wanted to talk, but he’d always gotten sidetracked by someone or swept up in something else. Miller didn’t know what job he may have been given or taken on himself, but the guy was racing around camp like he was on a hunt. Bellamy swore he hadn’t assigned Monty to anything just yet though and actually provided the next opportunity to find him.

Octavia, Lincoln, and a few of the remaining 100 were going out to scout for the Trigedakru, to see if they were returning to their local villages or going farther out to Polis. Really, to see what kind of danger they might pose, given how the alliance had been so harshly severed when it was most needed. They’d be gone for a few days at least and if spotted, it was unlikely their presence would be welcomed. 

Monty was supposed to be seeing them off, and for all that Octavia had implied that his need for comfort would be his downfall, she didn’t seem quick to let him go at the gates of Camp Jaha. Monty’s hands gripped the folds of her armour so tightly that there was a real concern that he could get hurt if his fingers strayed to any of the many sharp weapons on her back. For her part, Octavia was most likely at least bruising him with the force she was using. When they broke apart, Octavia cupped Monty’s head at the neck and said something with a wink that made Monty smile. When she let him go, instead of stepping back and waving them off, Monty centred his attentions on a very surprised Lincoln for a hug of his own. Lincoln floundered for a moment, but a pointed gesture from Octavia had him reciprocating the hug quickly enough. Eventually, Monty made his way through the entire group before the scouts were finally off, leaving him alone at the gates, a strangely incongruous figure of soft blue wool against the background of dark ground and dead grass.

“I hate letting them go like that,” his dad suddenly said from beside him. Miller hadn’t heard him walk up but there he was, apparently on his shift if his uniform was any indication. “I know the Grounder knows the lay of the land, and the rest of them aren’t just kids anymore. You’ve all survived so much, become so much stronger than even we are. But I hate the idea of sending them out there on their own just the same.”

Miller wanted to say, “You didn’t, Bellamy did,” but he was trying not to disturb the fragile power balance they’d established between the remaining 100 and the Alpha station crew. Besides, his dad could protest all he wanted, but Miller had not failed to notice how the kids who leaving with Octavia had been clad in much more than their usual thin and torn clothing. They may not have been outfitted head to toe in complete guard gear, but they had enough pieces of armour here and there, along with legitimate weapons, that they’d be safer now on this mission than they’d ever been when they first landed. So in the end, all he could say was, “They’ll be okay.”

And by the time he redirected his gaze to the gate, Monty was gone. Again. And Miller had to fight back the sigh of frustration that would likely confuse his father.

* * *

**5\. Harper**

With Octavia gone, Bellamy asked Miller to take up the first shift of night patrol and he was more than happy to accept. It wasn’t like sleep came easy to any of them anymore, so it was almost a blessing to be forced to be alert for five hours in the dead of night. It would be just enough to push him into enough exhaustion and allow him to pass out later. Of course, like all his plans of late, that idea was shot in the face when distant, piercing screams broke through the near silence and sent adrenaline surging through his veins. By the time his sprint brought him to the clutter of tents he thought the screaming had come from, the sound had been cut off. 

There were guards on the scene, presenting a comical mix of trained self-assuredness and uncertainty due to their knowing that this was the section in which the remaining 100 had naturally congregated together, and that they much preferred to manage themselves. This latter point was made more evident by the fact that nearly everyone on the scene seemed to be taking their cues on what to do from a barely dressed Monroe, who’d clearly been woken up by the sound only moments ago, but could still present a threatening figure with just her glare alone. 

“Monroe,” Miller called, his gun drawn and pointed to the ground.

Monroe took in the weapon and shook her head. Not that kind of crisis, then. 

“Harper,” she said, quietly, nodding towards the red tent a few feet away. 

Not the kind of crisis he was overly qualified to deal with either. Still, Miller reholstered his gun and turned to the guards.

“We’re good here, thanks,” he dismissed them. Then he turned to the fearful and curious few who’d come out of their tents to investigate the disturbance. “Get some sleep, guys. Everything’s fine.” 

Then, he started making his way towards Harper’s tent. As he got closer, he could hear muffled sobs from within, and he had to curb the instincts to both run away and to barge right in.

“Harper,” he called out, loudly and clearly, “I’m coming in, okay?”

But it wasn’t Harper who answered with a wobbly, “Yeah.” He’d found Monty after all.

When Miller walked in, he found them sprawled awkwardly on the floor, as though Harper had fallen out of her cot and just stayed there on the ground until Monty had propped her up enough to get his arms around her and tuck her face into his chest. Monty kept up a steady stream of comforting words like “you’re safe” and “you’re okay” and “I’m here” and “I’m not leaving you”, but his voice was thick and wet and shaky. Harper was inconsolable, Monty had twin streams of quiet tears coursing down his cheeks, and the picture they presented was so entirely heartbreaking that Miller had to look to the side every so often and blink repeatedly until the stinging of his eyes went away. 

 When Harper’s harsh, body-wracking sobs calmed to a halting whine, Monty shifted to gather her more closely against him and laid his cheek on her head, his distress-reddened face now perfectly visible to Miller.

“Nightmare,” Monty mouthed, and yeah, Miller had already figured that. Part of him was irrationally pissed about it, too. 

Monty was the one he’d been tracking down for days, _he_ was the one walking around camp looking like a ghost with the weight of a mountain pressing down on his shoulders. He was the one who looked like one wrong change in the wind would knock him down and keep him down for good. He was the one who needed comforting, who needed to be held, and it wasn’t fair that he had to be that for someone else right now. So part of Miller wanted to tell Harper to suck it up and get back in bed and deal with her own problems.

But those feelings could only exist in the few milliseconds he could look away and stop listening to their ragged breathing, because deep down, the part of him that was pissed on Monty’s behalf was closely related to the part of him that was terrified of what awaited him when he closed his own eyes at night. The part that hated feeling weak and helpless. And Harper, more than most of them, had reason enough for her nightmares. She’d been alone and tortured for days, expecting nothing but a slow death, and when she was finally rescued, they’d put a gun in her hands and told her to buck up because there was a war on. And she’d done it. She’d pulled herself together in the two minutes she had, and she’d given her everything to get them out of that mountain. She was entitled to her post-nightmare breakdowns for the foreseeable future and beyond. And she deserved to have someone who cared for her to hold her and bring her out of them. That it had to be Monty right now was just a reflection of the bad hand they’d been dealt; the world wasn’t built to be fair. 

But as Miller motioned towards the tent flap, signalling his intent to leave them alone, Monty’s eyes grew wide with a split second of panic, and Miller realized he wasn’t going anywhere. He may not have been getting that moment alone he’d been angling for, but he could at least be this source of strength for Monty tonight, while Monty was doing the same for Harper.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why I'm always roping poor Harper into these angstfests, aside from the fact that I love her and need her to get her comfort in as well. 
> 
> The BIG Minty chapter is coming up next, with a final, smaller chapter that's more like the cherry on top than anything too substantial. :P


	3. Miller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miller finally finds Monty, and it was obviously long overdue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, the Minty chapter, and the title-revealer (hopefully it hasn't been too weird having some random word/theme as the title that only connects in the big final moments, I seem to have fallen into the pattern :P).

**+1 Miller**

Having spent an hour at Monty and Harper’s bedside, Miller would have thought for sure that that would have been the night he could get Monty alone. But after that hour, he realized he needed to wake his backup to take his shift and report to Bellamy before the news of screaming in camp reached him, and by the time he’d gotten back to Harper’s tent, she was its sole occupant. He made sure she was sleeping deeply, and fixed her blanket where it had started to fall off her foot, and then left to track Monty down again.

Unfortunately, he had no success. Monty must have ducked into someone else’s tent, and without any idea whose, Miller had nothing to go on; he wasn’t about to start walking into random people’s tents at two in the morning. He did swing by Wick and Raven’s, but they were both on the bed that night, sleeping curled around each other (though Wick was so far near the edge, he looked ready to spring away and Raven her space at the slightest need), and the cushion on the floor was vacant. 

In the end, Miller had no choice but to crawl into his own bed and call it a night.

The next day was the worst in his search for Monty. As soon as he woke up, he seemed caught in a cycle of catching a glimpse of Monty only to lose him mere seconds later. The first time, Miller was stepping out of Alpha and he could have sworn he saw a familiar blue cardigan rush through the corridors and then out the main doors to the exterior. The next time, he was in line at the commissary and he saw Monty walk by quickly, stop abruptly to scan the crowd waiting for their lunch, and then rush away again, disappearing completely. Later in the afternoon, coming out of Bellamy’s tent, he spotted Monty in the distance, walking from tent to tent and peering in like he was lost and trying to figure out which was his again, but by the time he’d run over, Monty was gone. 

After that, Miller was resigned to having failed yet another day until well after the sun had set when he spotted him as a flash of pale blue at a heart-stopping distance from the ground, about halfway up the communication tower. Monty was gripping the metal under his arms and looking out at the camp from all angles.

“What the hell are you doing?” he called up, anxiety giving his voice an angry edge. Monty either ignored him or didn’t hear him because he didn’t respond.

“Hey,” he called again, more sharply, knocking against the tower twice for good measure.

“Miller?” Monty called, looking down finally. His voice was markedly vulnerable, and Miller now was twice as nervous about him being up there.

“You wanna come down?” he suggested calmly, like he didn't have every intention of climbing up there and physically walking him down if the answer was no. 

Fortunately for him, Monty cast one last sad look around the camp, and then started making his way down. Miller hovered anxiously at the bottom, his eyes flitting to every point of contact Monty had with the metal under him until his feet touched dirt again, at which point he let out a heavy sigh of relief and caught Monty by the blue cardigan to turn him around.

“What were you-“

His words cut off as he caught sight of Monty’s rolled up sleeves. On each arm was a row of tiny black marks, no doubt created by the black pen held white-knuckle tight in his hand. 

“Monty, what-“

“We aren’t enough,” Monty whispered brokenly. “I’ve been counting over and over but we’re not enough.”

Miller took Monty’s forearms in his hands and looked down at the patterns. The marks on his left arm were neat and tidy, with five rows of minuscule, vertical dashes spanning from his elbow to his wrist, grouped into fives. His right arm, however, was a mess. It looked like he’d started creating the same rows on his skin but then gone back and crossed some out, and restarted new groupings later on. His skin was red with irritation, and there were drying and still-wet spots of blood where he’d been too rough with the pen. 

“Monty, what are you doing?” he asked, gently, around the lump in his throat. His thumb swept softly over a rough patch, but Monty seemed too far gone to feel it. “Are you…trying to count us?”

“I don’t need to _try_ ,” Monty said, the first set of tears escaping down his cheeks. He raised his messy arm higher. “We’re not enough. I though we were, earlier, but I counted a whole shift twice. I didn’t know the schedules were different and I counted them twice and I had to start over, double check everyone and that’s when I knew…we’re not enough.”

“Enough for what?” Miller asked, his fingers spasming helplessly around Monty’s forearms.

“To justify what we did,” Monty whispered fervently. “We…we sacrifice the few to save the many. We do. But _we’re_ the few this time. We’re not enough. _We’re not enough_. I killed them and I can’t take it back. I killed _Maya_ , I killed good, innocent people, kids, I -   _We're not enough_.”

Monty’s breathing grew erratic and his eyes were getting glassy without new tears to blame, so Miller did the only thing he could think of - he pulled Monty in roughly by the forearms and wrapped his arms around him. Monty’s body was shaking, and despite repeating his awful mantra - _We're not enough_  - over and over, he didn’t seem cognizant of what was happening anymore. His arms hovered behind Miller, not dropping to his side but not hugging back either. Miller’s hold was firm and unyielding, only loosened enough to accommodate Monty’s haggard breathing. The shaking went on long enough that Miller was beginning to feel that something might be very wrong and that he might need help. He let it go on another few minutes before he was mostly decided on calling for anyone in yelling distance to run to Medical and get help.

But, slowly, enough of the panic seeped out of Monty that the grief had enough space to flood back in, and then Monty was sobbing as raggedly against Miller’s shoulder as Harper had against his the night before. He raised an arm, bringing it over Monty’s shoulders to grip his neck, and that seemed to finally prompt Monty’s arms to close around his back like vices. The grief and guilt passed through Monty’s body in dreadful waves, building and building painfully before calming down, only to start again, and at every peak, Monty’s fingers would curl in tightly around Miller’s shirt, his nails sometimes finding purchase in the skin underneath. Miller would feel those tomorrow, but tonight, all he could do was hold on and pray he could get Monty through this.

When the sobs finally died down to quiet crying and sniffling, Monty's body tremors grew to a constant, convulsive shivering that had Miller wishing there was a tent to slip into nearby. Lacking that, Miller tried to back up slightly, causing Monty to hold on more tightly.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he murmured, reaching a hand back to surround one of Monty’s clenched fists and bring it between their bodies instead to share in their body heat. Monty pulled his other arm in without prompting, and Miller’s went back to both holding and warming as best he could until the shivering had lessened to an occasional tremor.

When Miller was sure Monty had mostly calmed down - or more accurately, had drained himself completely - he very slowly leaned back just far enough that he could grasp Monty's forearms again. At some point, the pen had been abandoned, likely to be found at their feet, but his marred forearms were still on display. 

Gently, Miller's fingers tugged on the sleeve of the arm with the tidy and organized rows of marks. Monty jerked his arm away immediately and Miller let him go, but when Monty didn’t pull back any further, Miller reached for it again, just as gently as before. This time, Monty let him pull the sleeve down, though his bloodshot eyes followed every disappearing mark until the blue fabric reached his wrist.

Then, Miller reached for the messy arm, and Monty let it go without looking at it. Miller didn’t reach for the sleeve, though. Instead, he framed the arm in his wide hands, and let his thumbs run very delicately over the clump of marks and redness. 

“Am I on here?” he asked as his thumb pressed down gently on a relatively unmarked patch of skin.

Monty’s head turned, his eyes following Miller’s gaze down to the inked chaos. He nodded slowly, weakly.

“Is my dad here?” 

Miller hesitated, but nodded again.  

“Harper? Jasper?”

Monty winced, fresh tears gathering on his eyelashes, but he nodded.

Miller wrapped his hands around the marks so that his fingers covered most of them and pulled Monty’s arm flush against his chest.

“We’re all here,” Miller confirmed. “We’re all here because you saved us. And that’s enough.”

Monty’s chin fell to his chest, and the line of his shoulders tensed like he was prepared to argue, but Miller squeezed his arm with both hands to get his attention again.

“Things are different down here. It’s not like on the Ark. You saved us. You saved our people from certain, painful death. We’re enough, Monty. If you had only saved one of us, it would have been enough.”

Monty didn’t reply, didn’t shift from his forlorn posture, not even to stop Miller when he finally pulled the cardigan sleeve over the chilled skin of his forearm. 

“We’re enough,” Miller murmured again, pulling Monty back against his chest and shoulder. Monty didn’t answer. He just burrowed his forehead into the crook of Miller’s neck and breathed somewhat haltingly until Miller was pretty sure he’d given in to the exhaustion.

Then, since he still had no idea where Monty’s tent was, there was nothing to do but to lead him slowly back to his own quarters to get some rest. He guided Monty down onto his bed, pulled his shoes off, but left his pants and cardigan alone, and wrapped him in his thickest blanket. Then he tiredly kicked off his own shoes and reached over Monty to snag a cushion from behind him. But before he could pull back, a familiar grip caught his shirt and he looked down to find Monty’s eyes barely open but focused completely on him. Monty didn’t speak, but his fist pulled weakly at Miller’s shirt.

Miller’s hand came up to cover Monty’s, encouraging him to let go, and he did but he looked unbearably sad about it until Miller deftly slid under the blankets beside him. He had just started to figure out the best way to arrange them on the small bed when Monty, with the last reserve of energy he had left, all but crawled over him and clutched him tightly with both a leg and an arm. Monty could have laid his head on Miller’s shoulder but he had landed a little too far across him, so his chest would have to do. Miller curled his arm around Monty’s back, and laid his other hand on the sleeve of the arm across his body, securing the fabric in place. They could deal with the marks tomorrow.

For tonight, this was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! There will be a shorter little epilogue to round us out including one last hug I couldn't feel right ending this fic without.


	4. Jasper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't plan on this in the beginning but I found that I couldn't in good conscience have Monty finding comfort and offering comfort to all kinds of people and not *try* for this. So here we go!
> 
> (Also, sorry it's coming so late, I got sidetracked by volunteering and attempting to vid. And I usually reply to comments right before posting the next chapter which is why those were late too. Sorry!!)

**+2 Jasper**

Monty had not woken up the next morning ready to take on the world with a bounce in his step and mischief in his eyes. In fact, the first time he woke up, it had actually taken him a good minute with a damp cloth to open his eyes because the dried tears had crusted up his lashes so badly. And when he did get them open, they were so painfully red that Miller made him close them again until he fell back to sleep. So they stayed there, entirely entwined, for the better part of the morning, only rousing when Miller’s backup came looking for him; unlike the night at Harper’s tent, Miller had completely forgotten he was on patrol when he’d come across Monty. He’d have to report to Bellamy and let him know what happened.

By the time they got up and were ready to leave, though he was nowhere near chipper, Monty seemed a little more at peace, a little more solid on his feet. And when he reached out for a hug out of the blue, Miller’s suspicions about his tactile habits were confirmed. One night’s catharsis wouldn’t rid Monty of his need to hug people, it was just his nature. And honestly, Miller was not going to be the one to complain, he was just going to have to make sure he was in Monty’s vicinity more often than not to benefit from it. That was the thought running through his head as he wrapped his arms around Monty in the doorway of his room, reluctant to move to the next step of letting go and parting ways. But they did, eventually, and Monty didn’t quite smile but his eyes were as soft as his voice when he said, “Thanks, Nate.”

Miller watched him go, Monty's hands tucked into his blue cardigan, shoulders hunched, but looking warmer than he had in days. 

And then Miller had to acknowledge the possibility that this deep-seated need to hug might just be contagious because he knew at that moment that he’d be spending every day going forward just as he’d spent the last few: looking for Monty everywhere he went.

Luckily for him, he’d barely started that night’s patrol when a flash of pale blue appeared in his peripheral vision and scuffling boots fell into step next to him.

“Nice night,” Monty said, aggressively casually.

“Yeah, it is,” Miller replied, not stopping the smile trying to overtake his features.

It was a good night, spent talking quietly about the most mundane things. And it got even better when, at the end of his shift, without talking about it, they found themselves back at Miller’s, back under his blankets and molded together like they’d never separated that morning. And when the pattern repeated itself for six nights in a row, Miller could hardly be judged for his newfound, basic cheer - subtle though it still was. And, on the flip side, he could hardly be judged for worrying when Monty didn’t show up on the seventh night.

Miller went through his entire shift more alert than he’d ever been but he came across no enemies and no Monty. He let himself think of Monty waiting for him under the covers back at his quarters, and it was the only thing that kept him from the anxiety threatening to grip his lungs and choke him, but when the next person on patrol showed up and he raced back to his room, he found it empty. He took a moment to try to calm himself down, but only that one moment, and then he was running back to the tower he’d found Monty climbing a week ago. He wasn’t there. So he pulled out his old, mental checklist and ran from one end of the camp to the other ticking each place off - commissary, Raven’s, Harper’s. 

“He hasn’t been by since yesterday,” Harper said apologetically, her voice groggy. Miller would have felt bad for waking her up but Monty was missing and he didn’t have it in him to care about anything else right now. Harper didn’t seem too bothered anyway, she was already pulling on her boots to help him look. “Have you checked Jasper’s?”

“No?”

Harper paused in putting her other boot on.

“They’re talking again?” Monty hadn’t mentioned that.

“I don’t know, but it’s been a while…”

“Long enough to forget what happened?” Miller asked skeptically. 

“Not hardly,” she replied sadly, “but I think maybe they’re the kind of friends where that might not matter.”

Miller had no idea what that meant, but he left her in her tent to check it out with a promise to swing back and get her if he wasn't there. 

Encouragingly, a light was still on in Jasper's tent despite the hour, and Miller thought he could hear hushed sounds coming from inside, the kind you get make when you're hurting and you try really hard to keep quiet but just physically can’t. Miller crept closer, quieting his footsteps as best he could against loose dirt and rocks, and found a sliver of an opening through which he could peek in. He saw two bodies, and he processed the sounds of heart-wrenching sobs, but more than anything else he registered Monty’s familiar form - which he could now recognize from any angle - and felt, for the first time in hours, like he could breathe again. 

When his brain moved on from the initial discovery, the rest of the information came flooding back in, and Miller figured Harper must have been right because he realized he was watching Jasper sob brokenly in his friend’s arms. Monty was crying as well, but holding himself back, like he felt he wasn’t allowed to let go just yet. Their grips around each other looked painful but neither one of them was trying to shuffle out of it. They were just hanging on and trying to get to the other end of the pain.

And as much as Miller wanted to be in there, to tug Monty away and hug him _right_ , make him feel like that could let it all out and grieve for himself, he knew he wasn’t needed here. As painful as this scene was, it was good. Harper was right, their friendship was special, it ran deeper than blood, and deeper than the worst betrayal.

This was a good thing.

It did feel colder in his bed that night, though.

* * *

Miller woke on the wrong side of the encroaching dawn to light jostling, followed quickly by heavier jostling, and then by patches of freezing cold on his body that had him hissing and trying to curl away.

“Sorry,” Monty whispered contritely, his breath stealing across Miller's chest as he settled into his usual position. The cold spots were his bare elbow and knee crossing Miller’s body, his fingers and toes making themselves at home around him. Fortunately, the blanket resettled around them quickly enough, and their shared body heat warmed them both up quickly.

“You okay?” he asked, trying to blink himself awake, and curling his arm around Monty’s back.

“Yeah,” Monty replied with a heavy sigh, rubbing his cheek against the shirt covering Miller’s chest.

Miller smiled affectionately in the darkness, and lifted his other hand to wrap around Monty’s fleecy sleeve like he always did, but his fingers landed on soft skin, which confused his tired mind enough that he had to pull the blanket up to verify. Sure enough, from what little light they had in the room, he could see that Monty had shed the blue cardigan, his forearm was bare, and the black marks that hadn’t done more than fade ever so slightly over the past week were gone completely. The skin of his forearm was warm and puffy but Miller wasn’t overly worried about that. 

“Jasper helped me get them off,” Monty whispered. He seemed self-conscious, but not nearly enough to keep the bit of awe out of his voice when he spoke his friend’s name.

Miller smiled in the darkness and swept his thumb over the irritated skin softly enough to make Monty shiver lightly and burrow closer against him.

“You guys okay?” he asked.

“No, but…eventually,” Monty said. “It’s still hard for him to see most of us. We just remind him of…of her. Me and Bellamy, especially. But we’re working on it, he’s willing to work on it. So, for now…" he trailed off, considering his words, before saying, "it’s enough.”

And if Miller had had any doubts about the words he’d offered Monty the other night, he could have none now. To get through this recent trauma, and to get through whatever hardship would come up next because something absolutely would, this - they, all of them - would be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap on the cuddliest thing I will probably ever write! Hope you liked it!


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